Description

How and why have anti-Zionism and antisemitism become so radical and widespread? This timely and important volume argues convincingly that today’s inflamed rhetoric exceeds the boundaries of legitimate criticism of the policies and actions of the state of Israel and conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The contributors give the dynamics of this process full theoretical, political, legal, and educational treatment and demonstrate how these forces operate in formal and informal political spheres as well as domestic and transnational spaces. They offer significant historical and global perspectives of the problem, including how Holocaust memory and meaning have been reconfigured and how a singular and distinct project of delegitimization of the Jewish state and its people has solidified. This intensive but extraordinarily rich contribution to the study of antisemitism stands out for its comprehensive overview of an issue that is very much in the public eye.

Author Bio

Alvin H. Rosenfeld holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is Professor of English and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University Bloomington. He is editor of Deciphering the New Antisemitism and Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives and author of The End of the Holocaust.

Reviews

“Beginning with wider perspectives and then narrowing to include national perspectives from Israel, Poland, Germany, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and South Asia, this volume explores the origins that underlie the current reality of antisemitic anti-Zionism, and indeed, it makes the persuasive case that anti-Zionism today is essentially one of the most prominent and pernicious forms of current antisemitism.”
— Mark Weitzman, editor (with Michael Fineberg and Shimon Samuels) of Antisemitism - The Generic Hatred: Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal

“This important volume should be of interest to anyone who thinks seriously about the state of Israel and the extraordinary levels of criticism levelled not just against the policies of particular governments, but against the very idea and existence of the state itself. These criticisms are being voiced with growing insistence and attract considerable attention, uncritical approval, and adherence. This volume offers a very different and much needed set of arguments that persuasively counter much of what passes, particularly in progressive circles, for conventional wisdom.”
— Philip Spencer, author (with Howard Wollman) of Nations and Nationalism: A Reader